WHO urges
exercise and nonsmoking in first
advice on
dementia
In the report issued on Tuesday, the
UNʼs World Health Organization
(WHO) Director-General Dr Tedros
Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the number of people with dementia is expected to triple over the next 30 years.
He highlighted the condition as a
global health priority. While age is
the strongest known factor for decline, it is not an inevitable consequence of aging, the report found.
"We need to do everything we can to
reduce our risk of dementia," Ghebreyesus said. "The scientific evidence gathered for these Guidelines
confirm what we have suspected for
some time, that what is good for our
heart, is also good for our brain."

US jury orders
Bayer to pay $2
billion in
Roundup cancer
case
A California jury has ordered
Monsanto to pay $2 billion (€1.78
billion) to a couple who claimed
the agribusiness giantʼs Roundup
weed killer caused their cancer.
Mondayʼs verdict is the third consecutive one in a California court
against Monsanto, which was
bought last year by German
chemical company Bayer. Two
previous jury rulingsawarded $80
million to a manand $289 million
to a former groundskeeper,
though a judge later reduced the
latter ruling to $89 million. The
state court jury in Oakland found
that Alva and Alberta Pilliodʼs
use of the weed killer for over 30
years at their home and other
properties caused them to contract
non-Hodgkinʼs
lymphoma.
Lawyers for the couple called the
$2.05 billion in punitive and compensatory damages a "historic" ruling. Legal experts said a
judge would likely significantly
lower the payout.

110/2019 • 15 MAY, 2019

US, Russia seek better
ties after years of
diplomatic crises
Senior officials have called for an overhaul of US-Russia ties

Senior officials have called for an overhaul of US-Russia ties, saying
a more "constructive model" is necessary. Experts say attempts to
normalize the often tense relationship will prove difficult, if itʼs even
possible.
Even before he was elected, US
President Donald Trump praised
Russian President Vladimir Putin,
describing him as a "strong leader"
and someone "Iʼd get along great
with." Throughout his presidency,
Trump has attempted to foster a
deeper relationship with Putin despitea series of diplomatic crises between Washington and Moscow.
Earlier this month, Trump described
in a tweet the "tremendous potential
for a good/great relationship with
Russia," adding: "The world can be
a better and safer place." But Trump
appeared to ignore the strategic divide between the two countries, a
point that Secretary of State Mike
Pompeo acknowledged on Tuesday
after meeting with his Russian
counterpart, Sergey Lavrov. "We
have differences — each country
will protect its own interests and
look after its own people — but itʼs
not that we have to be adversaries
on every issue," Pompeo said before
meeting with Putin. "I believe itʼs
time to start building a new, more

responsible and constructive model
of mutual perception of each other,"
Lavrov added. Despite Trumpʼsamicable posturing towards Putin, the
US presidentʼs years in office have
not been characterized by a drastic
improvement in relations. In fact,
Lavrov at one point described the
period as "worse" than during the
Cold War. For Theresa Fallon, director and founder of the Brusselsbased Center for Russia Europe
Asia Studies, there is a disparity between Trumpʼs rhetoric and government action. "Early on in the Trump
presidency, there was this perception that things would improve. We
heard about champagne corks going
off in Moscow. Everyone thought it
was going to be this great relationship," Fallon told DW. "But the reality is very different." Last year, the
Defense Department singled outRussia and China as the largest
threats to US interestsin its "national
defense strategy," outpacing terrorism for the first time since the September 11 attacks in 2001.

Violent earthquake
hits Papua New
Guinea
A powerful earthquake has struck an
island chain off Papua New Guineaʼs
north coast. A tsunami warning was
briefly issued but later lifted. The extent of any damage was expected to
become clear after sunrise. A shallow,
violent offshore quake hitPapua New
Guineaʼsremote New Britain island
late on Tuesday. The 7.5 magnitude
quake initially triggered a tsunami
warning. The Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre warned that unusually
large waves could reach Japan, Taiwan, the Philippines and Indonesia,
however it later said the tsunami
threat had passed. The quake hit
around 50 kilometers (30 miles) off
the islandʼs north coast at a depth of
around 10 km just before 11 p.m. on
Tuesday (1300 UTC), the United
States Geological Survey said. Papua
New Guineaʼs Disaster Management
Office said villagers on islands closer
to the epicenter and on the west coast
of neighboring New Ireland island reported the ocean receding, but no
damaging waves or casualties.

Houthi rebels
attack Saudi oil
pipeline
A Saudi minister says that a crude
oil pipeline in Riyadh province has
been attacked by Yemeni drones.
The attack follows Saudi claims of
sabotage attempts on two of its oil
tankers off the United Arab Emirates. Two oil pumping stations in
Saudi Arabia were the target of "terrorism and sabotage" on Tuesday,
according to the countryʼs minister
of energy.

weather today
BUDAPEST

8 / 13 °C
Precipitation: 0 mm

110/2019 • 15 May, 2019

French retailer Decathlon
cancels plan to sell
sports hijab
French sporting goods chain Decathlon has canceled plans to sell a
runnerʼs hijab in France following
a public outcry and opposition
from some politicians who called
for a boycott. Decathlon official
Xavier Rivoire told the RTL
broadcaster on Tuesday that the
Muslim headscarf designed for
runners would not be sold at its
stores in France for the time being.
Read more: Muslim fashion for
women: Modesty meets trendy
style Decathlon had initially said it
would sell the sports hijab to meet
"a requirement of certain runners,
and we are therefore responding to
this sporting requirement." Several
French politicians criticized Decathlon for its plans to sell the
product in France, including
Health Minister Agnes Buzyn.
Such a product is "not forbidden
by law," she said on RTL, but "it is
a vision of women that I do not
share. I would have preferred that
a French brand not promote the
veil."

Anti-Semitic and
xenophobic crimes rose
in 2018
Germany:

Facebook, Instagram
ban British far-right
figure Tommy
Robinson

Politically motivated crime in Germany has decreased for the second straight year, according to the German Interior Ministry. But it
logged more hate crimes, including anti-Semitic and xenophobic
crimes.

Facebook has taken harsh measures
against British far-right personality
Tommy Robinson, banning him from
its platforms and closing his Facebook page and Instagram profile.
Robinson is said to have violated
Facebookʼs "community standards"
by promoting "organized hate" and
other prohibited behavior. Specifically, the company noted in a statement that Robinsonʼs pages had repeatedly broken its standards by
"posting material that uses dehumanizing language and calls for violence
targeted at Muslims." "This is not a
decision we take lightly, but individuals and organizations that attack others on the basis of who they are have
no place on Facebook or Instagram,"
the social media giant said. Antifascist and anti-racist organization
Hope Not Hate welcomed the decision, referring to Robinson as "a farright thug who uses his platform to
bully, abuse and stir up division."
"This is not a decision we take lightly,
but individuals and organizations that
attack others on the basis of who they
are have no place on Facebook or Instagram," the social media giant said.
Anti-fascist and anti-racist organization Hope Not Hate welcomed the decision, referring to Robinson as "a farright thug who uses his platform to
bully, abuse and stir up division."

The number of anti-Semitic and
xenoophobia-related crimes rose in
Germany last year, although there
was an overall drop in politically
motivated crime, according to statistics released by the German Interior
Ministry on Tuesday. The ministryʼs
report on politically motivated
crime showed that anti-Semitic incidents rose from 1,504 in 2017 to
1,799 last year, an increase of
19.6%. Similarly, anti-foreigner

2

Berlin AG wants
to get rid of fines
for fare evaders

Authorities in Berlin view fare dodging as a criminal offense punishable
by a €60 ($68.6) fine. Local police
filed 12,000 complaints over the issue
in 2017 and more than 300 people are
imprisoned every year for not being
able or willing to pay the fines. The
left-leaning mayorand other top officials have recently called for less
drastic regulations, with some proposing to downgrade fare dodging to a
mere administrative offense. Now, the
Berlin attorney general wants to go a
step further and "completely abolish"
the crime of fare dodging. "We
shouldnʼt waste resources for criminal

crimes increased by 19.7% last year,
from 6,434 incidents in 2017 to
7,701 in 2018. Roughly nine out of
10 of all anti-Semitic and antiforeigner related crimes were committed by right-wing perpetrators.
The main offenses included hate
speech, anti-Semitic graffiti and displaying banned signs such as the
swastika. Hate crimes overall saw a
slight increase of 2.5% to 8,113
from 7,913.
offenses where criminality is highly
questionable," Attorney General Margarete Koppers told Berliner Morgen‐
post. Koppers is one of the most senior
judiciary officials in Berlin, a 3.6million-strong city which is also considered one of Germanyʼs 16 federal
states. Talking to the local daily, Koppers said downgrading the offense
would pose "no relief for the judiciary."

Belgium vows to
amplify EU voice on
UN Security Council
Belgiumʼs foreign minister says his
country will use its temporary UN Security Council seat to make the EU

Friend of Berlin
truck attacker in
France during
Nice attack
According to a German criminal police document seen by the dpa news
agency, Bilal Ben Ammar met with
Anis Amri the night before he killed
12 people in a truck attack at
Berlinʼs Breitscheidplatz on December 19, 2016. Read more: ʼTerrorist accompliceʼ in Anis Amri Berlin attack
deported, according to report Media
outlets ARD, Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg (RBB) and the Berliner Mor‐
genpostreported that Ammar may have
also been in Nice around the time of
the July 14, 2016 truck ramming attack that killed 86 people. RBB presented a screenshot obtained from
German police documents that
showed Ammar had a boarding pass
on his phone for a flight from Berlin
to Nice dated July 6, 2016 — eight
days before the Nice attack. The
name on the boarding pass was an
alias. Ammar applied for asylum in
Germany under different names and
separately claimed to be from Morocco, Egypt and Libya. Investigators
found the boarding pass on Ammarʼs
confiscated phone after he had already been deported to Tunisia, Amriʼs home country. Other photos on
the phone showed Ammar in Paris
with friends in the days before and after the Nice attack.

more influential on the global stage.
Belgium and Germany are to scheduled
to take up their seats on January 1. Belgium will use its two-year seat on the
United Nations Security Council to
bolster the European Unionʼs influence
within the global body, Belgiumʼs foreign minister has said. Didier Reynders
told Germanyʼs Neue Osnabrücker
Zeitung news outlet that Belgium aims to
help harmonize each EU member
stateʼs diplomacy so that they "send the
same message with different voices."
Belgium will take up its temporary seat
on the Security Council,the UNʼs highest decision-making body, along with
Germany on January 1. "We have an
important role to play in supporting
multilateralism," Reynders said.
"There is no better place for it than in
the United Nations Security Council."

110/2019 • 15 May, 2019

Donald Trumpʼs lonely dream of
Viktor Orban-like power
During his visit to the White House, Hungaryʼs prime minister received a lot of compliments. But the US presidentʼs positive opinion of
Orban is not shared by his administration, comments Keno Verseck.
No other EU head of government has
courted US President Donald Trump
like Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor
Orban. During Trumpʼs election campaign, Orban openly sided with the US
billionaire. And he was one of the first
EU heads of government to congratulate him, almost euphorically, on his
election in November 2016. Since then
he has repeatedly highlighted his similarities with Trump, be it on the issue of
migration, or the fact that both are
fighting the establishment and "political correctness." In fact, hardly any Eu-

Merkel kicks
off West Africa
tour pledging
support in fight
against
terrorism
German Chancellor Angela Merkel
started her tour of West Africa on
Wednesday, a trip that will see her
visit Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger
for key talks over the next three
days. The bulk of Merkelʼs visit will
focus on security andsupporting
counter-terrorism efforts in the
restive Sahel region. "In the last few
years, this region has become the
main focus of Germanyʼs Africa policy," Merkelʼs spokesman Steffen
Seibert said in a video prior to departure. "The number of terror attacks, the number of Islamist terror
attacks, is increasing," he added.
Burkina Fasoʼs President Roch Marc
Christian Kabore will greet the chancellor when she arrives in the capital, Ouagadougou, on Wednesday
evening. She will then attend a regional meeting with the leaders of
the so-called G5 Sahel countries —
which include Burkina Faso, Mali,
Niger, Mauritania and Chad.

ropean politician is as close to Trump as
Orban. Still, Hungaryʼs prime minister
had to wait two and a half years for a bilateral meeting with the US president.
On Monday that day had arrived
and Trump received Orban at the White
Housefor just over an hour. The timing
of the meeting was almost a humiliation. With the exception of Bulgaria,
Trump has already received or visited
all other eastern European EU member
heads of state or government. Hungaryʼs prime minister had to settle for
last place.

Finally! A way to return flavor to bland
tomatoes

When one starts typing the phrase
"Tomatoes taste like…", in Google,
the six most common autocomplete
suggestions
are
"blood," "dirt," "fish," "pumpkin," "chlorine" and "wet dog." If
you, too, have ever lamented tasting
wet dog (or, uh, blood) as youʼve bitten into a store-bought tomato-andcheese sandwich for lunch, you may
be in luck. On Monday, scientists introduced a rare version of a gene that
promises to make store-bought toma-

toes taste more edible in areport published in Nature Genetics. Tomato
breeders usually sacrifice the flavor
of their batches for the sake of production, opting to insteadbreed larger
fruits in higher quantitieswith longer
shelf lives. A team of researchers
(perhaps after hearing such "wet dog"
and "dirt" complaints) gathered genetic information from 725 wild
tomatoes and constructed a "pangenome," or a genome with information from all 725 tomatoes.

ECJ: EU employers must track working time in detail
The European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruled on Tuesday that EU member states must require employers to set up a system that tracks time worked each day by each employee to ensure labor laws are complied with. "Member States must
require employers to set up an objective, reliable and accessible system enabling the duration of time worked each day
by each worker to be measured," the court saidin its ruling. The court said the implementation of such systems, and
particularly what form they must take, is up to the member states.

3

110/2019 • 15 May, 2019

Older German diesels face
reckoning
German government ministers met at
Chancellor Angela Merkelʼs offices
on Friday to discuss the vexatious
diesel question. After years of wrangling, a solution is dearly sought, but
what are the realistic options? Is Germanyʼs
seemingly
never-ending
diesel debate edging towards its
endgame? On Friday, German government ministers for transport, finance, the economy and the environment met at the offices of German
Chancellor Angela Merkel to try and
reach an agreement on the thorny
subject of how to reduce pollution
from diesel cars as quickly as possible. Read more: New analysis reveals
deadly scale of diesel emissions Last
weekend, German government figures and car manufacturers were in
talks over potential hardware retrofits
for older diesels, but no deal was
reached. With diesel bans allowed in
Germany since rulings earlier this
year, the debate has entered a decisive
phase.Hamburg began a partial ban in
May, while Stuttgart,Frankfurtand
Düsseldorf are among the other cities
expected to follow. Car manufacturers are vehemently opposed to such
bans, as they have added to uncertainty over dieselʼs future and hit
sales. The debate in the Chancellery
once more centered on a few key
questions around whether older
diesels should be banned outright,
retrofitted with new hardware or
gradually phased out through incentivized buyback schemes. On top of
that is the fundamental issue of who
pays to make things better.

Sri Lanka seeks investment,
but China questions linger
You donʼt need to be an expert on international trade routes to look at a map
and understandthat Sri Lankaʼs location is one of potentially serious economic advantage. The island nation —
population 22 million — sits at the
southern tip of India, almost as close to
the Middle East and the Horn of Africa
as it is to South East Asia. The value of
this location has not been lost on its
northern neighbor China.Under Xi Jinpingʼs so-called ʼBelt and Road Initiative,ʼ the Chinese government has
pumped billions into Sri Lanka in the
form of both foreign investment and
loans in recent years. This reliance on
Chinese money is part of a longstanding Sri Lankan problem. With a
major trade deficit, as well as crippling
levels of debt, the country needs foreign money. China has rushed to fill the
gap more enthusiastically than anyone
else. The current Sri Lankan government came to power in 2015, when it
replaced former President Mahinda
Rajapaksaʼs administration.
4

Vodafone announces mammoth
losses
British mobile telecoms organization has released figures that include
huge losses, largely due to a merger with Indiaʼs Idea Cellular. Vodafoneʼs rivals in Italy and Spain were also cited as reasons for the losses.
Vodafone on Tuesday announced
losses of €7.6 billion ($8.5 billion),
causing the British mobile operator to
slash its shareholder dividend in an
effort to reduce debt. The telecoms giant announced the losses in the
2018/19 financial year were in relation to the sale of Indian assets due to
the merger with Idea Cellular. "The
loss for the financial year... was primarily due to a loss on disposal of
Vodafone India and impairments."
The venture with Idea Cellular in August 2018 enabled it to becomeIndiaʼs

Can the European
Union control
Chinaʼs connectivity
in Europe?
Last week, the EU announced a proposal for a "new and comprehensive
strategy to better connect Europe and
Asia." As European countries and industry expand infrastructure and network connections with Asia, and
China in particular, the EU is seeking to level the playing field and ensure that joint projects develop with
Brussels setting the standard. DW
spoke with Mathieu Duchâtel, senior
policy fellow and deputy director of
the Asia and China Program at the
European Council on Foreign Relations, about the EUʼs strategy on
connecting Europe and Asia. Mathieu Duchâtel: This proposal is the
EUʼs response mainly to Chinaʼs
Belt and Road initiative, with the
aim of making European values on
connectivity clear. I think itʼs the result of a feeling in the EU that it
wasnʼt in the driverʼs seat on the
connectivity discussion in Eurasia. This, of course, includes infrastructure because thereʼs no connectivity without infrastructure.

Knorr-Bremse set
to become German
IPO of the year
Knorr-Bremse said on Friday
that strong investor demand for
its 35 million shares to be publicly listed on October 12 could
value the stake at up to €4.21
billion ($4.77 billion). The German braking and technology
group now hopes to sell its
newly-floated shares at a price of
between €72 and €87. Earnings
from the 30-percent stake in the
company could make the flotation the biggest in Germany this
year, overtaking that of Siemens
Healthineers — the worldʼs
largest maker of medical imaging
equipment — which sold for
€4.2 billion. The companyʼs
chief executive Klaus Deller,
said Knorr-Bremse would welcome new investors as it was
heading
toward
further
growth. "We have received very
positive feedback from investors
and other stakeholders...confirming our strong belief that this
IPO is the next logical step for
us," he said in a statement.

largest mobile telecoms organization.
Despite the financial turmoil, chief
executive Nick Read was keen to
stress there was no need to panic. "We
are executing our strategy at pace and
have achieved our guidance for the
year, with good growth in most markets." Vodafoneʼs rivals in Italy and
Spain were also cited as reasons for
the losses. "These challenges weighed
on our service revenue growth during
the year, and together with high spectrum auction costs have reduced our
financial headroom."

Honda confirms
UK car factory
closure in 2021

Thousands of workers at the Japanese car manufacturerʼs plant in
Swindon are set to lose their jobs.
Hondaʼs president previously said
the move had nothing to do with
the United Kingdomʼs exit from the
EU.
Honda confirmed on Monday that it
would close its Swindon car factory
in 2021, with some 3,500 workers
expected to lose their jobs. "It is
with a heavy heart that today we
confirm the closure of Hondaʼs factory in Swindon," said Hondaʼs UK
chief, Jason Smith. The company
first announced its intention to close
the plant in February. The Japanese
car manufacturer said the move was
part of its plans to electrify its fleet,
which will involve focusing production in areas of the world where
there is a higher demand for electric
vehicles. In February, Honda President Takahiro Hachigo said the
Swindon closure was "not related"
to the UKʼs planned exit from the
European Union.

110/2019 • 15 May, 2019

Measles hot spot
pediatricianʼs office?
How can you still protect your child?

We need men to
talk about
periods: Oscar
winner Guneet
Monga

Weather

Thu

7 / 12

The more parents don’t vaccinate their kids, the higher the health
risk for those who are too young to be immunized.
When Jessica was visiting the pediatrician with her nine-month-old
daughter, they were suddenly asked
to leave the general waiting room and
hurried into another room. The reason: A child with ameasles infectionhad come to the practice. "We were
not allowed to leave the room until
everything was well ventilated and
disinfected," Jessica said. That experience impressed on the young
mother: "The feeling of knowing an
infected child is close and my child
still has no protection, thatʼs terrible.
After the visit I searched my daugh-

ter for signs of measles every day, for
fear she could have been infected."
Fortunately that didnʼt happen. Today the little girl is 18 months old,
has been vaccinated for a long time
and is old enough for kindergarten —
but Jessica wants to wait, because she
will soon have her second child. Until the new baby is vaccinated, she
doesnʼt want to take any risks. "The
baby could get infected anywhere, I
am aware of that. But the risk that
wecome into contact with measles in
kindergartenis simply too great for
me".

Spring festivals
shake things up
in Újbuda

German museum returns stolen colonial
era artifacts
As "Kaptein," Hendrik Witbooi was
one of the most important leaders of
the Nama tribes in Namibia during
the German colonial period and revolted against German power in
the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He accepted the Christian
faith by way of missionary influence
in the then "South West Africa."
Witbooiʼs personal bible, together
with a cattle whip, have been given
back to the Namibian nation at
arestitution ceremony on Thursday,
held in the resistance heroʼs hometown of Gibeon. The objects were
probably captured in 1893 during an

attack by German colonial troops. In
1902, they were donated to the Linden Museum in Stuttgart, which actively participated in their return as
part of its provenance research.
However, there were conflicts in the
negotiations over the return as to
whether the bible should not be
handed over directly to the legitimate descendants. Namibian President Hage Geingob has promised to
give the bible to the family at a later
date. In an interview with DW, Sandra Ferracuti, Africa consultant at
the Linden Museum, explained what
makes this return so important.

Life in District XI, Újbuda, has
been busy recently: new places
have opened, festivals staged and
literary brunches now await hungry bookworms. In May, Budapest100, B32 Gallery and the Association of Young Writers will be
catering to aficionados of culture.
Then in June, the popular minifestival series Gárdonyi Picnics is
taking place for another year.

Sat

7 / 12

9 / 14

Hungary

Period. End of Sentence is a documen-

tary about the deep-rooted stigma attached to menstruation in the village
of Hapur in the northern Indian state
of Uttar Pradesh. For generations,
women here did not have access to
sanitary pads, leading to health issues
and girls dropping out from schools.
Directed by award-winning IranianAmerican filmmaker Rayka Zehtabchi, the film is created by The
Pad Project, an organization established by a group of students at the
Oakwood School in Los Angeles and
their teacher, Melissa Berton. The
movie has been produced by 34-yearold Guneet Monga (pictured above),
who was born in Delhi and heads the
production company, Sikhya Entertainment. She has been involved in
several critically acclaimed Indian
movies, including Lunchbox, Gangs of
Wasseypur and Masaan, which won the
International Jury of Film Critics
Prize at Cannes in 2015. Monga is
brimming with ambition and confidence after her Oscar victory
and hopes the movie will help change
mindsets and hard-wired attitudes, especially among males, towards menstruation.

Fri

Budapest:
Debrecen:
Eger:
Hévíz:

6/13
5/17
4/16
5/16

Athens:
Berlin:
Bratislava:
Bucharest:
London:
Madrid:

4/25
0/21
5/15
6/20
3/17
10/21

Kecskemét:
Keszthely:
Siófok:

5/17
4/22
6/18

Europe
Moscow:
Paris:
Prague:
Rome:
Varsaw:
Vienna:

0/14
5/20
5/21
10/24
5/16
5/21

Culture

Keleti station to
close for two
weeks in May
FOR TWO WEEKS NEXT
MONTH, BUDAPEST’S MAIN
RAIL TERMINUS, KELETI STATION, WILL BE CLOSED FOR
RENOVATION. BETWEEN 13
AND 26 MAY, ALL DEPARTURES AND ARRIVALS WILL BE
MOVED TO THE CITY’S OTHER
MAIN STATIONS, NYUGATI AND
DÉLI, ALSO WITH THEIR OWN
METRO STATIONS ON THE PUBLIC-TRANSPORT NETWORK.

Over the course of a fortnight,
all railway tracks will be repaired
and
platforms
reconcreted. Overhead cables, the
security system, energy network
and lights will all be revamped.
A new LED information board
will be installed in the main
hall while the old buffets and
pavilions no longer in operation
will be demolished.
Benches and pictogram signs
will be replaced with new ones.
Damaged walls will be restored
and green areas by the entrances
will be planted with flowers. The
renovation works will employ
more than 100 people. Thanks to
this renewal, trains will no
longer be limited to lower speed
limits, timetables will improve
and there will be significantly fewer technical malfunctions causing delays. Hungarianonly
details
are
available
at www.mav.hu/keleti.

5

110/2019 • 15 May, 2019

EU: Neymar right
in trademark battle

The EU upholds a ruling in favor of
the Paris St Germain forward. A businessman had registered Neymarʼs
name as a trademark, claiming he didnʼt know the Brazilian was set for
stardom. Judges found this "inconceivable." The European Union has
supported Neymarʼs demand for a
declaration of invalidity against a
trademark registration trying to exploit his international appeal. At the
end of 2012, Carlos Moreira, from
Portugal, filed an application with the
EUʼs Intellectual Property Office
(EUIPO) to register the word sign
ʼNEYMARʼ as a trademark. It was
subsequently approved in April 2013.
This meant Moreira was free to use
the name emblazoned across products
such as t-shirts, hats and sports shoes.

Formula One
reaches 1,000
races

Toni Söderholm takes
charge of German
national ice hockey team
Weeks after Marco Sturm left to
pursue an opportunity in the
NHL, the German ice hockey
team have a new coach. Finnish
coach Toni Söderholm has signed
a contract that will take him
through the 2022 Winter Games.
The German Ice Hockey Association (DEB) confirmed on Thursday
what had been widely rumored for
days;Toni Söderholm is the national
teamʼs new head coach. "The decision was an easy one for us," DEB
President Franz Reindl told a press
conference in Munich. "He knows
the system, he is predestined for international ice hockey. I am proud
and am 100 percent certain that it
will work out well with Toni." For
his part, said he was "very happy" to
have accepted the post. "The No. 1
job is to make the national team better and better. Söderholm, a former
defenseman, is a relatively inexperienced coach, having only retired as a
player in 2016 following a season at
Red Bull Munich. Before turning
professional, Söderholm spent four
years playing US college hockey
with the University of Massachusetts. As a pro he spent the bulk of
his career at the club of his youth,
Helsinki IFK, but also had spells in
the top leagues in Sweden and
Switzerland – where he learned to
speak German.

Twenty three-time Grand Slam champion Serena Williams plans to
compete at the French Open despite withdrawing from the Italian
Open with a knee injury.
The American, 37, was set to play
sister Venus Williams in the second
round but said she would be "concentrating on rehab" now. "I look
forward to seeing you all at the
French Open and next year in
Rome," she added. Former world
number one Caroline Wozniacki
also pulled out in Italy. Wozniacki,
28, withdrew from her first-round

match against American Danielle
Collins because of a leg injury, having lost the first set 7-6 (7-5). It is
the second straight tournament at
which the Dane has been forced to
retire early on. She trailed 3-0
against Alize Cornet in the opening
round of the Madrid Open earlier
this month before pulling out with a
back injury.

Dirk Nowitzki: Going out with a double-double

The Formula One circuit kicked off on
May 13,1950 at Silverstone in England.
Italyʼs Giuseppe "Nino" Farina (pictured here) won the first-ever F1 race
and would go on to win two more of the
total of seven races to win the first
driversʼ title.
6

After 21 seasons in the worldʼs top
basketball league, Dirk Nowitzki
has left the court for the last time.
He did so with a strong performance in the same city in which he
first burst onto the global stage.
Chen Ying is begging for attention.
The Chinese woman is standing with
her boyfriend Xu Wei right behind one
of the baskets at the AT&T Center in
San Antonio. Itʼs the basket thatDirk
Nowitzkiand his Dallas Mavericks
teammates are shooting at during the
warmup. Ying is far too polite to
scream. Instead, she holds a banner
above her head, which reads in Ger-

man: "Lieber Dirk: vielen Dank, dass
Sie von 13 bis 30 Jahre bei mir
geblieben
sind.
Liebe
aus
China" (Dear Dirk: thank you for staying with me from 13 to 30 years. Love
from China). Below that is a short request that Nowitzki had already ruled
out fulfilling for her or any of his other
fans: "One more year." Itʼs been almost 24 hours since Nowitzki announced at his last home game that he
was calling time on his playing career.
Ying and Wei were also in the American Airlines Center in Dallas one night
earlier. They flew to Texas for Nowitzkiʼs very last NBA game.